The security van had a set routine for the bank deliveries, relying on technology and CCTV for protection. The plan was simple, one of the boys even said it was an insult to call it a plan, and they all laughed.
Jamie didn’t laugh a lot. He had always wanted to impress his father and now they had begun working together on more sophisticated jobs he wanted to show that he could get his hands dirty and get the basics done as well as anyone.
Trouble was it hadn’t gone well.
He was getting up close and personal with the delivery man, the one who transported the case from the van to the bank and back. One of the boys was holding a shotgun to the driver. The third was pointing a pistol at the scene in general.
The driver decided to be a hero. Somehow he knocked the van door against the shotgun and got out. Instead of running away he came round to the bank side of the van, where the delivery man was in the process of being persuaded to hand over the money. The driver tried to intervene. Jamie had the Glock ready and he didn’t hesitate. He fired, more than once, and the driver fell, there was blood and the delivery man fumbled with the keys to release the wrist strap to the case.
Someone in the bank must have pressed the alarm.
As soon as they got the last of the Mondeo’s doors shut they heard the sirens. The police sealed off the High Street so they had to double back and try the side streets. Soon they were lost in a maze of dead ends and speed calming schemes.
The crash was caused by the tyres blowing out when they ran over what the police call a ‘stinger’, a strip of nail sharp fingers they spread over the road to burst all four tyres. None of them were wearing seat belts, they didn’t worry about being arrested for that misdemeanour.
The two men in the front went straight through the windscreen, bounced on the road a few times and were dead by the time they stopped rolling. The one next to Jamie became embedded in the seat in front of him. Jamie smashed his head on the side window, the headrest of the driver’s seat and then back against the rear windscreen.
He was the only one taken out alive.
Alive! Joke.
‘So what are you going to do? Read his rights?’
‘Think he knows them by heart don’t you, May?’
The monitor began to bleep in a faster tone. Louder, persistent.
Debbie was the first to react. She ran to the door, opened it and shouted. ‘Nurse.’
Two nurses rushed into the room. One leant over the bed while the other fiddled with the monitor.
Within seconds the slow regular beat and the meandering lines of light were restored to monotonous normality.
‘Panic over,’ one of the nurses said as they left the room.
‘What happened?’ Debbie said.
The nurses looked at one another. ‘You’ll have to ask the doctor.’
‘We’re asking you.’
‘Don’t quote me, but I’d say there was an escalation of brain activity.’
They were all there, queuing up to torment him.
The three dead men from the crashed car, a couple he’d known from school. The security guard kept walking past and smiling, walking and smiling. When he went out of view the place was taken by cousin Val, then when she moved on there was his father, whispering words of advice.
It was relentless. Thoughts tumbled over one another for attention. People’s faces, names he had long forgotten. Voices, accents and tones, and thoughts, random thoughts that weren’t linked together by anything logical except they were colliding round and round inside his head.
He felt as if his brain was on fire. His head was going to explode.
All he wanted was some peace, some quiet, even for a few minutes, just to catch his breath, to collect his thoughts.
But his thoughts weren’t keeping still long enough to get a second of rest. He was thinking about everything. Incidents from his life, ideas, songs, sounds, people. People kept appearing, and instead of taking someone’s place they were all jammed in together, all wanting a piece of his attention.
He was full, he couldn’t take any more in.
His thoughts just wouldn’t switch off, they were getting faster and faster, flashing strobe like on his consciousness. The beating rhythm was incessant. Haunted by his own memories, by his own life.
Silent turmoil was unfolding inside his mind and he knew he would never be able to rest again.
‘You know,’ May said, once Wood and Radash had left.
Debbie let out a long sigh. ‘What?’
‘He looks really peaceful just sleeping there. Not a care in the world.’
MAGDALENE
The kitchen door slammed shut behind him with such force that it sounded like a rifle shot. In the movies rifles, guns, shots of any kind, killed people, they were final. Perhaps the door being slammed was final; his parting words certainly seemed to indicate an ending, a parting shot.
He’d left without kissing her goodbye before, several times, too often to actually keep count. They’d long since forgotten the old adage of never going to sleep on an unresolved row. The rows were as continual as they were constant and separating one from the other had long been a redundant task that she no longer had the energy to even attempt.
This argument, a disagreement really, no more than that, had been over the plans for the weekend. She hadn’t known there was an important football match on television at precisely the moment she had them sitting down at the local Italian to celebrate her parent’s wedding anniversary. It wasn’t a special one but that wasn’t the point. What was the point apparently was that it was a special match and recording it on Planner wasn’t good enough, he had to watch it live.
She suspected he had invited his mates over, something he did occasionally. He must have thought she was out shopping or somewhere, unless he expected her to provide the food and drinks for them.
Sitting at the kitchen table surveying the toast crumbs and two small puddles of spilt milk she realised she didn’t care about his plans, although once she might have done. Once she might have found a way to accommodate his selfishness by altering the time of the family meal or even changing the day. Now she didn’t even care that he had gone off to work with mild insults ringing in his ears.
She looked around the modern kitchen with its pale oak furniture, cupboards with brushed chrome handles and appliances that had cost a fortune. Not long ago she had loved having her friends round so they could admire the American style fridge freezer, and the built in oven and hob with stainless steel and glass extractor. She would have talked for hours with them about the under floor heating below the stone tiles, and the recipe for this and that.
There were no pictures on the fridge. No children’s art pinned there by fridge magnets, no calendars with sports events or birthday parties marked, no invitations to sleepovers. Maybe that was the problem.
Her tea had gone cold so she boiled the kettle, added a teabag and sugar to her mug and made herself another one. Upstairs she heard a noise as if someone was walking around but she knew that was impossible. It couldn’t be anything more than floorboards moving back into place where they had been walked on earlier.
The house was old but they had made it as modern and convenient as their budget allowed. He had a good job, in the City, and bonus culture finances were to be applauded so long as they paid for the luxuries she had immersed herself in. Three bedrooms, one master with en suite, one guest room also with en suite and the third turned into a study with built in bookshelves and cupboards. It was the room at the front they had planned to turn into the nursery if things had gone differently.
The kitchen was an extended room with table and chairs as well as the myriad of cupboards and appliances she had lovingly assembled. The reception rooms were testament to a successful professional couple; large screen TV, sound system, leather couches, and stripped oak flooring. Even the garden looked like it had come straight out of a trade magazine.
The telephone rang. She ignored it. It might be him but unlikely
. If he did call he’d use her mobile. It was probably her mother and she was in no mood to chat, whether about the weekend meal or anything. She’d had enough of talking for now. It seemed to be all she had done for weeks.
‘We’d better talk.’ Had become a mantra for them. Sometimes he had said it, sometimes she had. She had forgotten when neither of them suggested it, the numbing of the senses passing off as another milestone along the road of the marriage. Give Way had become Dead End.
She rinsed her mug in the sink and put it in the dishwasher. It was only half full but she put it on anyway. The table debris she couldn’t be bothered to tidy or clean so she left it as it was.
Upstairs she sat on the bed. Watching television together had become awkward. If it was a comedy they sat at either end of the sofa stony faced, neither wanting to laugh out loud in front of the other in case it revealed more emotion than they were prepared to offer. Conversation had not quite got to the ‘pass the salt’ stage but she found herself apologising to him like she might do a stranger in the street if she bumped into him or passed too close in the hall.
Her suitcase was small and light but it would hold everything she needed. Just a few days she told herself. See how it went. She put in essential toiletries, underwear, jeans, tops, shoes, chargers for her phone, MP3 and Kindle. Have a break, a rest. Gather her thoughts and her strength. It was draining living with a stranger, like having a permanent house guest. There was only so much best behaviour she could bear.
He’d taken the Audi so she opened the boot of her car, a Fiesta, and dropped in the case and her jacket. Her handbag she put on the passenger seat and backed out of the drive. Before she drove off she looked at the house. The wide drive looked even bigger than it was without any cars on it. The hanging basket either side of the double garage were waving cheerfully in a slight breeze. She’d closed all the windows even though the heat was building up as early morning developed and suggested it was going to be a warm day. The doors were all locked and apart from the kitchen table the house was tidy enough. She drove off without a backward glance.
The petrol gauge showed less than a quarter of a tank so she headed for the nearest garage, a supermarket petrol station and mini shop. She elected to pay at the kiosk when the pump gave her the choice and filled up with unleaded. In the shop she took a basket and filled it with crisps and biscuits and a newspaper and bottled water.
‘Going on a picnic?’ the greasy haired woman serving her said.
‘No,’ was all she could manage in return.
‘Collecting the school vouchers?’
‘Not this time.’
‘Put in your PIN.’
It was his year of birth, her security number on the credit card. She’d probably remember to change that to some other significant number.
Walking back to the car there was a young lad in a Corsa waiting behind her car in the queue.
‘Hurry up,’ the boy called out of his open window and she heard laughter from his friends inside the car.
She walked over to him, her car keys dangling from her fingers. ‘Sorry, son, didn’t hear you.’
‘Get a move on, holding up the traffic.’ More laughter. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted out of the open windows.
‘You’ll have to wait a bit longer unless you shut your mouth. I’ll sit here until you’re old enough to shave if I have to. Now find another pump or wait patiently like a good boy.’
There was even more laughter but the driver’s face was as red as the paintwork of his car.
Magdalene got into her car and drove away. It was when he began calling her Maggie that she knew they were in trouble.
‘Please don’t shorten my name like that.’
‘It’s my special name for you.’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘Magdalene sounds so formal.’
She loved her name; hadn’t at school sometimes when the other kids found complicated ways to rhyme it with something they could chant, but then they all did that to each other at various times. All in all she was pleased with what her parents had called her.
The sun was bright and she opened the flap where she kept some bits and pieces and pulled out her sunglasses. Music would help her decide where to drive. She pressed the radio button and pushed a few programmed numbers until she got some acceptable station playing a mix of eighties and soft rock.
When they had first got together they’d enjoyed going to festivals and concerts. The V at Chelmsford two years running had been great fun. Camping in the Red sector, washing sporadically but drinking regularly. Living on sandwiches and burgers for the weekend.
Traffic was quite busy around the town centre so she chose the ring road and headed off into what looked like the countryside. They were lucky where they lived. Close enough to a town for the amenities, near the rail and motorway links into London, yet a few minutes drive away from fields and forests.
Perhaps the miscarriages had been the catalyst. Each one more painful than the last. Each one leaving her with a blinding sense of loss and when the date of the birth came around she felt the loss again. He coped well, and for a while they grew closer. Yet with the second he was a little less sensitive than he had been at the first. By the time of the third she might even have thought he was impatient with her, almost as if he’d had enough of these and wanted something different. So did she.
She slowed and braked when she came to a minor crossroads, controlled by traffic lights. A sporty car pulled up alongside her, indicating to turn right. She looked at the driver. They had no face. It was a woman judging by the clothes, but where the features should have been there was a blank parchment mass of plasticine type lumps, dotted with craters.
The lights turned green, the sports car accelerated and then just before turning off the road the driver stared at Magdalene and there was a face, a pretty blonde woman in her twenties, smiling and enjoying the sunshine.
Magdalene sped along the lonely road, a car going the other way occasionally. She was in deep forest interspersed with cow painted fields. The sun dappled through overhanging crowns of trees, then opened up like a door of light so that she had to keep pulling the visor up and down. Her sunglasses were a feeble barrier.
She had no idea how long she’d been driving. If she’d been at home she’d have been to the gym by now, it was her day off. She might have sat in the garden at the new green metal chair and table and ate lunch, probably a tuna salad and maybe even a cold San Miguel. Then afterwards a doze on the wooden lounger if she could be bothered to open up the shed and bring out the shallow cushion.
Thinking about what she might have been doing made her realise she was hungry. A couple of hundred yards later she saw a small sign at the side of the road. She slowed so that she could read it. Haven House, Country Hotel and Restaurant. Before she gave it a second thought she had indicated, even though there was nothing else on the road, and turned off down the side road.
Her music had reached a natural end so she turned it off and listened. She pressed the button and opened the window. The warmth caressed her cheek. She could hear bird song and the leaves of the trees rustling as if breathing. The sky overhead was all but obscured by the branches, as if God was being shut out of this place.
Suddenly the trees opened into a clearing, a gravel drive giving way to a paved area where an ancient Morris was parked as if basking in the sun. She slowed the car, eventually braking to a halt as she looked at the place.
The Haven was a mellow brick building that may have been one hundred, two hundred or more years old, or might have been built in the last ten years using sympathetic materials. Terracotta urns were filled to bursting with fuchsia and lobelia, while hanging baskets were a riot of reds and yellows, spilling out as if fighting for space.
Windows were flung open but there were no sounds coming out.
She parked diagonally to the Morris and got out. It was very quiet, the song of the birds an echo in the distance. Even the trees were still, witho
ut a breeze to ruffle the leaves. She took her bag out of the boot and then put it back again. What was she doing? She wasn’t staying. Just a meal, lunch, freshen up and then back on the road again. Where to she couldn’t say.
She locked the car and walked up the brick steps to the front door. It had a menu to one side, advertising the Florida Grill, as if it was an attraction. The selection looked fine so she went in.
The interior was cool and discreet. A bit old fashioned with the reception desk in dark oak, and wood panels on the walls. Paintings hung at irregular intervals, portraits that wouldn’t have been out of place in a stately home. A winding staircase led out of sight to the first floor.
‘Can I help you?’
She realised there was someone behind the reception desk but she was sure there hadn’t been a moment ago.
‘I’m just looking for the restaurant.’
‘Not checking in then?’ It was a woman who might have been any age from thirty to late fifties. Her skin had that crumpled look of the habitual smoker and her pale blue eyes seemed to have leaked onto her eyelids, so heavily applied was the eye makeup.
‘No, I don’t think so. Just need a good meal.’
‘That’s what we do. Good food. Good rates for rooms as well. If you don’t mind me saying you look like you’re in need of a bit of a rest.’ Her accent was vaguely West Country and although she was inferring Magdalene was looking tired out her manner was kindly enough not to give offence.
‘Maybe I’ll look at your brochure over lunch.’
The woman looked delighted. ‘That’s more like it. Here.’ She handed over a large glossy brochure. ‘Just had them printed. Full colour.’
‘Details of the website?’
‘Website?’ The woman looked puzzled. ‘Not sure about that but we’ve got the prices and full details of all the amenities.’
Magdalene thought about the iPhone in her bag, a lifeline to the Internet and wondered how any hotel managed occupancy rates these days without web access. ‘Can I just go through to the restaurant this way?’
Ghosts and Hauntings Page 2